Supreme Court dismisses PIL on Rahul Gandhi's citizenship row

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday warned litigants against raising frivolous issues through public interest litigations, as it dismissed a PIL seeking a CBI probe into Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi’s alleged foreign citizenship.

If litigants continued to do so, the court said it would be forced to lay down rules restricting the right of citizens to invoke PILs only in special cases, such as those involving the plight of the mentally ill.

A bench, comprising Chief Justice HL Dattu and Justice Amitava Roy, warned lawyer Manohar Lal Sharma, who had filed the PIL, of imposing exemplary costs if he continued with the demand for court action on what was essentially a political issue.

Justice Dattu, who demits office on Wednesday, recounted an instance in which he had visited a home for mentally-ill children where 49 children had to share one common toothbrush and tube of toothpaste and had no towel. These children were forced to wipe themselves dry with their own clothes, he said.

PILs should be filed in such cases, asking the district collector to ensure 49 toothbrushes for each of the children and a towel each, and “not in this (Rahul Gandhi) case,” he said. The CJI refused to name the state in which this had happened.

“We cannot have a roving inquiry,” Justice Dattu said, asking Sharma why he could not take his case to the Election Commission if he had a complaint about the veracity of an election affidavit. “How did you get hold of these annexures? How can you say the person concerned filed this? What about its veracity?”

In any case, there are criminal courts, the CJI said. “You are seeking action against an individual in a PIL. This is pure and simple a PIL against an individual,” he said.

“If anyone has made a false declaration, ask the relevant body, that is the Election Commission, to take action,” the CJI said. “Who has said that the person concerned has filed it? That he has made this solemn declaration?”

The CJI said someone has to prove that the documents downloaded from the British Registrar of Companies was correct.

Sharma insisted that Gandhi had filed affidavits in 2004, 2009 and 2014 with the Election Commission not declaring anything about his nationality, a must for a candidate contesting elections.